


Scars

by Merkwerkee



Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [19]
Category: Masters of the Metaverse
Genre: One Night Stand, Whumptober 2019, during his time in the Vietnam War, self-image issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:20:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22855360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: Scars tell a story. Not all stories have happy endings.
Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643020





	Scars

Bruno sighed and dropped his head in his hands.

Beside him on the bed, a slip of a Korean woman named Sip Yoon-Ji - at least, that was the name she’d given him last night at the bar - murmured sleepily and rolled over. He hadn’t specifically gone to the bar for company, but she’d come up to him bold as brass and offered a good, if not restful, night, and he’d agreed. The direct look in her eyes, the determined set of her jaw…

Well.

He had a type.

So he’d gone with her, and they’d had an excellent night. He made sure to give as good as he got, and she had appeared to enjoy herself immensely, going so far as to invite him to stay and actually sleep. Well, more like they’d finished and cleaned up and she turned into an octopus he couldn’t disengage without hurting her, so he’d stayed. He hadn’t even had any unpleasant dreams.

And yet.

When he’d first taken off his shirt, she’d been….taken aback, to put it mildly. Bruno looked down at himself, at the patchwork web of scar tissue and memories, missions stitched into his skin. A bayonet scar down his ribs - why the Commie bastard had had one, much less one affixed, he’d never know - ran into the shiny swathe of flesh leftover from an up close and personal encounter with a flamethrower.

Knives, bullets, explosions, vehicular collisions, falls, acid, fire, electricity - he’d been through it all, and lived. Most of the time whoever had used the item in question on him couldn’t say the same. They were a testament to all he’d survived, a mission report nobody but him ever knew the full extent of.

What didn’t kill him….he sighed, and reached down to pull his shirt on. What didn’t kill wore away at him. Year after year, chip after chip. He’d lived and learned, and yet the scars kept coming. Something in Yoon-Ji’s eyes had reminded him of the look in Lori’s eyes when he’d gone off to war, a glimmer of fear on a face not used to such emotions. Lori's letter, several months later, had been more painful than surprising.

The similarity had been fleeting, but it had almost been enough to make him leave. If she hadn’t jumped him - literally - he would have. As it stood, the night had been nice. Enjoyable.

Bruno finished doing up his shirt and tucked the tail in out of habit. Checking to make sure everything was in his wallet, he padded silently from the room. In the kitchen he topped up a pitcher of water, made sure the stove was stocked with wood, refilled the rice container from the large bag in the pantry, and picked up his boots on the way out. In the hallway he paused to put them on, then headed out for the room he’d rented further from the heart of the city.

It’d been good, but it wasn’t to last.


End file.
